I've recovered the above from my mother's house and wonder if it's worth getting serviced. How much should I invest in it?

Also, does anybody know the approximate WPC in Solid State terms? I've heard that tube WPC is not the same as Solid State WPC.

Hi,
It is a respectable amp, even for solid state. As for how much to put into it depends on how attached you are to it. Resale on most solid state equipment is not great for most items, but then again, the new stuff is intended to be disposable. Your Heath on the other hand, was made to be serviced, and if you open up the case, you should find a few adjustments that you do not find on other systems.

Other than some potential issues with the electrolytics drying out, you should not have that much to worry about.

As for power output, WPC is effectively the same between solid state and tubes. There is far more hype in solid state, but to develop more power output, you can just add more transistors, whereas with tubes, any increases in power developed by additional tubes also requires adequate design for the output transformer.

The differences you most often see is actually between speaker designs of old and new, and their respective efficiencies.

One thing to be aware of is that most noise specs for solid state equipment is achieved in operating the unit at extreme levels that you do not achieve at home, so noise specs are decieving, and most people cannot distinguish between an amp with .05% and one with 5%THD. A lot of people also mistake noise floor for THD.

As for the actual power ratings, are we addresing "Peak", RMS", or "average"? They are all different, and most companies hyped "Peak" output. Heath used an RMS formula for thier power ratings.

I do not have the ratings for yours, all of the sites I used to have that covered that have gone by the wayside, but based on some info for a model of similar vintage rated at 15 Watts, yours is potentially a 10 Watt to 13 Watt unit. This really does not matter with vintage equipment connected to vintage speakers as the efficiency of the speakers is greater. If all of your listening is done at normal comfort levels for the average person, extra power is only going to add a little bit of bass, so youcan cheat by increasing the capacity of the output caps. The notion of having the repercussion of the field artillery pieces for the "1812 Overture" (while fun in the academic sense)is misguided in practicallity. Many of the cars that you hear with the accentuated bass actually achieve that with a lot power (that gets wasted as heat), and large value capacitors of a few farads.

:I've recovered the above from my mother's house and wonder if it's worth getting serviced. How much should I invest in it?
:
:Also, does anybody know the approximate WPC in Solid State terms? I've heard that tube WPC is not the same as Solid State WPC.